Email. Sent Mail: 'revision'

fromSabrina Rocha


toStephen Ross



dateMon, Mar 15, 2010 at 8:42 PM

subjectrevision

mailed-bygmail.com



hide details 8:42 PM (1 minute ago)



In my original proposal I wrote this:

“Through this study, I desire to incorporate my previous background and training in architecture with what I am doing now and the current path I have chosen to take in an effort to discover a new outlet and way to take everything in.”

The projects I assigned myself are not fulfilling this statement and are not what I want them to be. Simply ‘wanting’ stronger projects does nothing, I need to make it happen. The problem that I didn’t really think about and/or anticipate when I wrote this study was my access to the tools and resources to create good projects. I’m not in Austin anymore. (I’m not even in Naples anymore!)

I don’t have a studio space with pens, papers, desks, or exactos. I share a tiny studio apartment on Miami Beach lacking even the basics: desk, scotch tape, pins, pencils. No kitchen either (which makes my baking/cooking/recipe ideas out the window). I don’t have the woodshop. I don’t have the art/architecture stores in walking distance, like the Co-op or Asel or Breed’s. I don’t have a computer lab with the super fast and powerful computers with all those wonderful programs like Rhino or Adobe Suite, hooked up all those printers.

(Sigh).

I don’t even have a regular laptop, I have a netbook (no dvd/cd drive, no adobe suite, not much memory/speed, no printer). The unsecured wireless network at the apartment is weak and disconnects frequently, so I can’t even count on getting online at home most of the time. Miami Beach Public Wifi is inconsistent and blocks access to www.blogspot.com when I go to most coffee shops.

So the prospect of doing a project project, is definitely really difficult, and, well, expensive. These ‘little’ projects become big projects; they grow into these overwhelmingly giant architecture monsters. The three I’ve already done grew behind closed doors, in cabinets and under beds and I tried not to think about them until they came out from hiding (at the time I knew they would) and corner me and I thought/felt/screamed:

“Nooooooo! Please don’t eat me all up! Give me a sec, let me think…(how to feed you? How do I satiate your hunger…till next time?)”

I created these frankenstructures. I thought it would be super beneficial and intriguing to redo my old work, but it hasn’t been. It’s not that I’ve been counter-productive, but instead of redoing the past, I want to be present.

Proposition:

I want to study the built environment around me in Miami. There are amazing spaces, designs, movements, and buildings everywhere here, so I propose to submit small studies on them. I’ll go to the places and take pictures or walk or dance around and then do a little research about the history online and through public records. Then blog about it.

I’ll keep the same due dates and number of projects left (five) to start. If it turns out that the posts end up being really short and sweet, then I’ll do more of them. In addition, I’ll sketch something (whether it’s a figure from a magazine or a building or car) everyday. When I go home to Naples, I’ll scan my sketches in and post them.

It’s simple and might seem less ‘creative’ than the original proposed projects, but for me, right now, it makes more sense. I’m not going to be living here very long, and, obviously, I just moved here. So doing this will push me to get out and see and experience Miami instead of struggling to build/construct/create things in my tiny apartment out of materials I don’t have using tools out of reach with my hands tied behind my back. (And then beat myself up about the project not being on par with it's original.) And sketching--sketching will always be good for me.

Steve Ross, how do you feel about this?

Architectural Theory: SoBe Art Gallery

1.5 weeks

material: Me, Clothes, Grey Backdrop, David Perez (photographer)

I was brainstorming like a madwoman trying to figure out how I wanted to do this project and no matter which way I went, I kept coming back to The Person, to you, to him, to her, to me. The problem was, I was going round in circles with what was what. I thought I’d written down a new idea, only to realize that it was just another twist in the spiraling storm. The idea of a gallery is about display, but there is ambiguity about what is on display and what is being displayed. So all my ‘new’ ideas kept bringing me back to my self-obsessed, self-absorbed eye of the storm.

Why did I keep coming back to myself? I asked.

I asked: What comes first?

The Person : Human Being. I answered.

I answered: The person as gallery, art, artist, audience, and consumer.

I sought to find simplicity and clarity in this project. I fought the simplicity and clarity I kept finding. It’s like when you keep scouring your pantry or fridge or closet for that one thing and then realize that it’s been right in front of your face the whole time. This project is like that. After talking to my mom (or, probably more accurately talking to myself out loud) I can perhaps accept that my thoughts + circumstances + hopes + daydreams …have all been converging and culminating into that ‘aha, there you are!’ moment. That, yes, what I am looking for is right in front of my face.

And that’s not a bad thing. I’ve been defending the blatant simplicity of this project to myself, trying to come up with ways to complicate it because that would somehow make it seem like I put more effort, time, and energy into it which would prove that I am taking this course and these projects seriously. Eventually I shot down every complication. It became a series of exercises that only kept reinforcing my simple answer.
So this project is simply one photo of me. Over and over again. The photo stays the same. The implications, observations, do not (I hope).

PERSON AS GALLERY

A gallery is where things are on display. The body displays fabrics, patterns, skill, technique, jewelry, emotion. It is a place that brings art (these things) to life, illuminating beauty. It is a volume with all sorts of angles, curves, spaces, and surfaces to be exploited and explored. One’s mind and body are places to experience art.

PERSON AS ART

Art is inherently an idea of depth in the sense that something meaningful is conveyed in a creative way. Something is art when we understand it as that. That is human. The human form is provocative, intriguing, beautiful, understood and misunderstood. It’s body bends, folds, creates spaces, and reinvents itself living, breathing, and growing. The shape is always unique and always the same. An artist can position the figure, manipulate it’s form and interpretation to embody their work.

PERSON AS ARTIST

The person as creator who can utilize their mind to realize ideas and unleash potential. The artist creates/ represents/ seeks genius, simplicity, and complexity.

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: ‘I am here to live out loud’ “ –Emile Zola

PERSON AS AUDIENCE

The person is observer of this world, of all art. There is an ability to comprehend art in relation to ones’ self and one’s experiences that enhances and reinterprets the work. All art is made for an audience because it is nothing without observation/comprehension/thought.

PERSON AS CONSUMER

The consumer goes beyond mere observation. This person needs the art, spending money, time, energy, actively consuming art. This relationship is symbiotic, the consumer finding a deeper meaning and understanding in themselves and the world in exchange for supporting the structure/system including the artist, art, gallery, canvas, and audience.











What do I see, what do I think, how do I feel, what do I say without opening my mouth? Am I asking about the girl in the photo or author of this blog or 'I' as the reader?

Design II: SoCo Art Gallery

4 weeks

scale: 1/16" = 1'0"

instructor: Joyce Rosner

This project evolved out of the idea of surface and the act of folding. A ribbon of two materials (wood and perforated paper) was folded and wrapped within the narrow site to define spaces. The materials separate and extend beyond each other to manipulate the texture of the space and play of light.

The program required an exterior sculpture garden, a light gallery, and dark gallery.   One enters the gallery through a floating procession overlooking the sunken sculpture garden. The perforations created a play of light and shadow in the reception area. Indirect light shone through layered roof planes in the upper gallery while the dark gallery (for films) was placed underground.

We generated our concepts for the project through a series of collages, paperfolding exercises, and soap models.

Flying Saucers and Concrete Ribbons

I don’t know where to begin. I finished Anastasia and she was all over the place; I’ve been all over the place; my mind flip-flops and splatters everywhere. All of this, in the best way possible.


Anastasia talked about our primitive destructive technology and culturing microorganisms to utilize in flying saucers. I’ve copied a couple paragraphs from the book to give the general gist:

“The functioning of all your machines, every single one of them, is based on the energy of explosion. Not knowing any more efficient natural sources of energy, you resort to such primitive, awkward substitutes with incredible stubbornness. And even the destructive consequences of their use do not stop you. The range of your aeroplanes and rockets is simply laughable –according to the scale of the Universe they rise a wee tiny bit above the Earth, and now this method has practically reached its ceiling, do not you agree? But that is ridiculous! An exploding or burning substance propels some monstrous structure that you call a space ship. And the greater part of this ship is designed precisely to ‘solve’ this problem of propulsion.[…]


“…if you or your people had purer thoughts and consequently a knowledge of the functionings of Nature, you would have long ago become aware that if there is a substance capable of instant expansion and, through explosion, transformation into another state, the opposite process must also hold true. […] A microorganism smaller than the eye can see does this with fantastic speed, feeding, it would seem, on air alone. It is these same kinds of microorganisms that power flying saucers. They are like the microcells in the brain, only their operation has a very narrow focus. Their sole function is propulsion. But they carry out this function to perfection and they can accelerate a flying saucer to one-nineteenth the speed of the average modern Earth-dweller’s thought.


“ These microorganisms are located on the inner surface of the upper part of the flying saucer and positioned between its double walls, which are set approximately three centimeters apart. The upper and lower surfaces of the other walls are porous, with micro-sized pinholes. The microorganisms draw in air through these pinholes, thereby creating a vacuum ahead of the saucer. The streams of air begin to congeal even before contact with the saucer and as they pass through the microorganisms they are transformed into tiny spheres. Then these spheres are enlarged even more, to approximately half a centimeter in diameter. They lose their firmness, and slide down between the walls into the lower part of the saucer, where they again decompose into a gaseous substance. You can even eat them, if you can do this before they decompose.”

Anastasia goes on to describe how to culture them.

She comes up with a realistically feasible (both economically and socially) solution to help curb urban air pollution. She talks about raising children and how that is the most important thing. That she’ll entertain Vladimir (the author) with singing superbly, doing crazy good gymnastics, speaking different languages, discussing (in the plainest terms) the concept of hover technology---but that the most important thing is raising children because therein lies the future of human society and the key to unleash our potential.

We resort to extremely childish solutions to solve our global, most fundamental problems. The way she looks at our technology makes total sense. And our conflict resolution? We fight wars and kill people. Our waste? We dump it, bury it, burn it. Really? If two little kids were fighting in a sandbox, parents would intervene and attempt to resolve the conflict without the kids hitting each other. Nations are big kids, but who intervenes? If a little kid buried a piece of trash in the sandbox, a parent might tell them that that isn’t wear trash belongs, it belongs in the garbage…which will then be transported far away to pile up until it makes a hill, which will then be covered with dirt and grass. New landscape: an oozing, infected, pus-filled blemish on earth’s skin. Then we’ll build a public park or something like that on it. What a beautiful hill, newly discovered in Florida’s flat landscape!

Speaking of flat Florida, the drive from Naples to Miami (which, now, in the past 3 weeks I have taken 13 times…it’s 2 hours long…and, consequently, 13 times reversed) is not entirely flat. It’s flat, toll, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, Seminole Indian Casino signs, small pass over manmade canal (occasionally), flat, flat, flat, (oh look! An alligator sunbathing in the canal running parallel the whole route), flat, flat, flat, flat, toll, and then concrete slopes and curves galore! Ease to the right, curve up into the sky, sweep down under three oversized concrete ribbons, grassy triangles of unused space dip and fill with water when it rains, abandoned. Trees are banned. Humanity is banned. Six lane highways cater to my little yellow bug and she crawls along the endless roadscape.

From the sky, the curves look enticing, intriguing how they bend, ratios, calculations of turning radiuses, careful accelerations, loads…all are taken into account to produce this oversized looping concrete. From a car, it’s like I’m programmed to accept it, I don’t notice how dismal it is because I’m speeding along so quickly. I turn up the radio, weave in and out of cars to the rhythm. But if stopped on the side, if abandoned along the highway for any amount of time, it would be fucking awful. It’s ugly, hostel, and dead. Driving cars don’t scream life even though they move.

This morning I didn’t either. I woke up early, got up and into my yellow bug by eight. I don’t have a parking permit yet, so the meter must be paid, in coins, between 8 am and 6 pm. I drove her to Target to get shelves for my little studio apartment…and I had one of those overwhelming moments. Overwhelmed by my existence and conditions. I was looking at tiptoeing around parking all day (to what, save a couple dollars?). I can’t stop spending money…on this parking thing (signing the title of the car to me, opening up a bank account with this address to prove residence, buying the pass, moving to Miami, driving back and forth)…the list just collapses on my head. Curbing my defaulted student loans. Paying for this course. Online English, still not started after a month. I stopped making money and I haven’t booked one of these castings that I’m bending over backwards to go to.

I thought I was great as the sister in the Spanish KFC Breast Cancer awareness commercial, holding the fried chicken bin and saying, hopefully, ‘Por mi hermana.’ I would be a great background ‘hippy girl’ in an Italian cell phone commercial too, I thought.

Well, apparently, someone else is a better sister or more fitting hippy. And it probably doesn’t help that I don’t actually have the right materials: i.e. a 9x12 model portfolio and comp cards yet. And those prints and book all cost more money.

I could have finished school by now and had my degree. AAAaaawwwww!

On the brink of tears, well, actually, some had already escaped, my mom called. She sensed my state and said that she was proud of me for what I’m trying to do and that it isn’t easy. And I just have to put in the time. It takes time. There are a lot of ‘what if’s’ . I still found myself teary after I hung up. Over the phone, she helped me pick out a big white shelf.

Up Collins Avenue

I parked in the parking garage on 16th street between Collins and Washington in Miami Beach and walked to my new studio apartment along 30th Street.

The stone bench / retaining wall has metal starfish and rectangle plates. These make it uncomfortable for homeless people to lay or sit and impossible for skateboarders to do tricks.  

A crane. This one is on Miami Beach. I almost didn't notice it. I did notice tons in Milan when I was there this summer.

A shrine on the side of the sidewalk. Four days ago when I was walking by, a group of students were gathererd in this spot; it was shrineless. Did they make it?

CVS bag in Indian Creek water.

An intriguing abandonoed building. I thought it was beautiful.

Can you get more art deco?

Simultaneous pathways. One is a boarderless deck along Indian Creek. Then there is a metal bumper. Then the concrete sidewalk painted red. Then Collins Avenue. I walked along the red sidewalk until I realized that it would be more pleasant to walk along the boardwalk instead.

Planted Broken Plant Pots as dividers to prevent parking.

Home, Sweet Home!..with pink marble and vertical purple neon lights.

Architectural Theory: Meditation Space

Meditation Space

1.5 weeks

materials: trace paper, 'silky' crayons

I made a paper balloon. You start with a square piece of paper and fold it up and then blow into it and it poofs right up. The ‘meditation space’ is within the blown-up balloon.

The paper is the body. The physical, densest matter. Its colors represent the chakras, or the body’s ‘energy centers.’

There are seven chakras, in ascending order along the spinal cord:

1. Muladhara - Base or Root Chakra (last bone in spinal cord) Red.

2. Swadhisthana - Sacral Chakra (ovaries/prostate) Orange.

3. Manipura - Solar Plexus Chakra (navel area) Yellow.

4. Anahata - Heart Chakra (heart area) Green.

5. Vishuddha - Throat Chakra (throat and neck area) Light Blue.

6. Ajna - Brow or Third Eye Chakra (pineal gland or third eye) Dark Blue.

7. Sahasrara - Crown Chakra (Top of the head) Purple.

The unfolded paper has a beautiful pattern. There is an organization and understanding of higher order. When the paper is folded into the right pattern, the chakras line up into the ascending order. When it is blown up, they are illuminated.

I like the idea of the balloon because it has unassuming potential. I like the idea of using paper to create this balloon: that a square piece of paper with no volume or depth can have both without any stretching or elasticity involved. Everything material is already there, simply.

The mind is what grasps this potential. It sees that the body can be creased, folded, scared, crinkled, torn, tattooed, unfolded, and does this. It folds the body into a deflated balloon. It breaths into it...and woah! The body swells up with new space. The mind is the action.

The act of blowing the balloon up has to do with breathing (obviously). Steady, conscious breaths into the hole at the top of the folded shape is the only way to blow it up. Sometimes it works the first time. Sometimes you need to coax it, get half way and refold it carefully along the creases and begin again.
The more frequently you blow up the balloon, the softer and more worn the creases become; the easier the shape understands what to do.

In this model, a meditation space is something within yourself. A higher consciousness, a deeper awareness and state of being is something that can be physically and mentally realized. It is beautiful and fragile; simple and complex. Light can come from within.

......................................................

(study models)

*I learned how to make origami paper balloons (and much more) in a week-long day-camp in the basement of a downtown church in Boulder, Colorado. I still remember how to make balloons and frogs. (They start the same way.)

Genisis of New Meditation Space

I don't meditate. I didn't meditate when I designed the original meditation space four years ago. I've never meditated (successfully). It's one of those things that I want to do. The idea and concept and everything about it seems wonderful/healthful/beneficial. But at this point, I've just sort of accepted that I'm not ready.

I'm too impatient; I can't clear my head of racing thoughts; I can't maintain good posture; I don't breath right either. When the impatience and anxiousness settles down, I suspect the other things will improve. All when the time is right. So with that said, my ideas are not coming from a meditative mind. They are coming from a meditative mind admirer.

First I had an idea about contrasting the idea of internal meditative states with surroundings. I wanted to do something with the spaces people actually meditate in versus the ideal spaces we talk about creating. How it is something more internal than external, the calm amongst the chaos.

Then I wanted to use boxes. Almost as if I just made the ascending pathway relief in the original project even more three dimensional--that each was a space. This series of boxes would go together (loosely) like those wooden Russian dolls. One in another in another and so on. Each box would have images or ideas on the outside and inside that related to different aspects of meditation: mind, silence, breathing, stillness, clarity, joy, love, etc.

I pitched this wondrous idea to my mom who meditates every morning for at least an hour in her room. She has a little screen with photos of healers and spiritual leaders; she seeks out workshops and has endless books on spirituality that keep arriving from amazon.com or Barnes & Noble across the street. Basically to me, my mom is an authority on this subject. A meditation space is more hers than mine and she nixed it so fast.

It went something like this:

"Sabrina, the idea of compartmentalizing meditation is inherently backwards. Meditation is about opening up and freeing yourself. [...] Your idea of breaking it down into boxes?...It's not good. It just doesn't make sense."

We chatted. She shared what she thought was fundamentally important and I listened and spilled out ideas and metaphors I thought fit. Thanks, Mom.